The Staging of Romance in Late Shakespeare: Text and Theatrical Technique

Few plays have both attracted and resisted genre study as strongly as Shakespeare's late plays. The Staging of Romance in Late Shakespeare: Text and Theatrical Technique takes a fresh approach to the role of genre in these plays by placing them in relation to the tradition of staged romance in the early modern English theater. The book argues that Shakespeare's late plays can best be understood as theatrical experiments that extend and reform this tradition, which developed around a group of theatrical techniques that sought to realize the effects of narrative romance in the theatrical medium. Their central effect was the creation of admiration in the spectators for heroic action; the value of the plays within the culture derived from this experience.